Got an email tip about a live event this upcoming Saturday from someonehelpmeplease@mail.com

Live Event on 7/28@12CST, part of the SomeoneHelpMePlease ARG. Wearing a mask is encouraged. Meeting with character “Nathan Liebert” and planning an attack on the “Three Frogs” research center. Possible swag, still being determined if we have the supplies for it. Meeting place is the corner of South Glenbrook and Carroll Drive, Garland TX, under ‘Nathan’s Lamp Post’.

If you aren’t going to ARGFest in Toronto this week and are near the Dallas/Fort Worth area, this might be a great opportunity to participate in a live event where it’s not a first come, first served race to find one item desired by hundreds of people.

PS – The text is a cut/paste direct from the email, so it really does say CST instead of CDT – although I’m guessing it probably is just a typo (no one ever gets time zone stuff right).

August 25th, 2009

One of the things I have found from assisting with dead drops and live events is that it helps tremendously to be able to contact people out in the field or at home with an internet connection. Over the years, I’ve collected a handful of contact numbers for various ARGers that I’ve been able to use to coordinate events with – and occasionally even used to alert players to events in their area.

My original idea for this blog started out as a massive database of player contact information. That idea wasn’t exactly feasible, plus it’s a million times easier to send out tweets and blog posts than it is to try to hunt down available individuals from a contact list. But I still find myself wishing that I had more ways of contacting people that I know are in certain areas, either to give them a personal update or even to tell them that there is something for them to do.

As such, I’m putting out a call for contact information. This is strictly voluntary. I won’t be hurt if you decide to completely ignore this request. Chances are I probably won’t even realize it since I really don’t have the desire to go and cross-reference my twitter followers with who I already have information for. Plus I’m willing to bet half of you don’t even know who I am so I can’t blame you for not giving up your phone number to a complete stranger.

If you do decide to provide me with contact information, I make the following promises:

Chances are I probably will never even have the occasion to use the information you give me. This is just a backup safety net for those events that fall through the cracks or for when you’re already out in the field and no one else knows how to get a hold of you. So if you would like to help out, great! If not, I do hope you keep continuing to follow this blog and/or twitter to keep up-to-date on events and will even send me tips about events that you know about. Thanks!

June 26th, 2009

…and sometimes the dead drop comes to you.

Forgive the departure from only talking about game events. I promise I won’t make a habit of writing long rambling META posts, but this does relate to dead drops and live events. And you might even learn something of value if you mange to read through this whole thing.

One statement that I’ve seen almost every ARGer make at some point in time is the complaint of “I wish that there would be an ARG in my town/city/general local area.” I’ve even been guilty of this thought once or twice – usually as I’m driving far too long of a distance to attend an event. It’s an understandable wish. Most people don’t really like traveling hours to participate in an event that may only take a fraction of the time it took to get there. And if you’re going out to a dead drop, there’s always the very real chance that it may be found before you even get there, making your long distance trip a complete waste.

What frustrates me, however, is when people seem to refuse to play a game simply because it appears to have a specific geographical tilt. “What if I do start playing and I put all this time into it and then it ends with a live event I can not possibly get to. It would feel like a bit of an anti-climax.”1 To me, ARGs are more than just the live events that can occur during play. Live events may be the frosting on the cake, but I don’t eat cake just for the frosting, and I don’t play ARGs just to participate in live events. I play for the story that is being unfolded over days, weeks and months and for my chance to impact that story through character interaction or puzzle solving or even just observation. Anything beyond that, from receiving swag or meeting a character, is just a bonus – like finding a $5 bill in the gutter when you’re going out for a walk.

April 13th, 2009

In February 2008, I made the following comment in a META discussion on the UF Forums:

Personally, I’d be more interested as a player to see a database of ‘instant’ player contact information (phone, IM, email) where one player could quickly pinpoint ARGers in a specific location and have them sent information on the missions – no matter where those missions took place.

Every time I saw another live event happening in an ARG, this idea of a player database came back to me. But I never felt that I had the technical skills to pull off what I wanted that would a: make it easy for people to submit/edit their information and b: make it easy for myself to use it. So, I put it into the “pipe dream” file and tried not to think about it too much.

Fast forward to April 2009 and an ARG called Charlotte. We were given the chance of a live event in NYC on Easter Sunday. Now, holding an event on a holiday with less than 24 hours notice is bad enough, but it is notoriously hard to find anyone in NYC for events on short notice. You’d think in a city of 8 million people there would be more than a few ARGers who would do anything for a chance at a live event/swag. And maybe there are – but you can never find any when you want them.

After asking on the forums and IRC for volunteers, a number of us started Twittering looking for anyone who could now look for a deaddrop in Central Park (since the original live event was scrapped). It was then that it dawned on me that I could use Twitter as way to broadcast live event information in real time. It wasn’t as focused as I originally wanted, and I wouldn’t necessarily have the contact with players in the field that I wanted, but it was a start.

So I registered @arg_deaddrop on Twitter. It’s my hope that ARG players with Twitter accounts will follow @arg_deaddrop to find out if a live event/deaddrop is happening near them and send in information on games with events so that more players can be a part of real world events.

@ARG_Deaddrop is only going to be as good as the people who follow it. Without a wide audience, it will be no better than asking in IRC or in the dedicated game forums for volunteers. And without tips from players from all the of the various games occurring at any one time, there won’t be anything for people to help out with. So please take a few minutes to do the following:

1. Follow @ARG_Deaddrop
2. Reply or DM @ARG_Deaddrop with information on upcoming events
3. Reply if you are heading out on a published mission
4. Reply or DM when the mission is complete

Events can happen at any time and in any part of the world – even outside of the big cities. So please don’t ignore signing up just because “nothing ever happens where I live.” One day, it just might, and won’t you be sad when you find out that it did but you weren’t playing that particular game on that particular day and missed out.